Cancer, Low Dose Radiation and Fukushima

Dr. Kiyohiko Sakamoto was one of the presenters at the American Nuclear Society 2012 Annual Meeting President’s Special Session on Low Level Radiation and Its Implications For Fukushima Recovery. The session organizers thought that his work on using whole body and half body radiation treatments to cure cancer and prevent recurrence was important enough to share with the meeting attendees that they arranged for him to come to the meeting all the way from Sendai, Japan.

Aside: Even if you are not familiar with Japanese geography, you might remember that Sendai was close enough to the March 11, 2011 earthquake epicenter that it was used as the name of the event in the early days before the media retagged the event as the Fukushima nuclear disaster. End Aside.

Dr. Sakamoto, a medical doctor (MD) and a PhD has been studying the effects of radiation experimentally since 1975 and medically since 1985. He started his career in Radiology in 1964. Based on what he has learned he made the following statement early in his presentation:

Based on my experience in treating many patients the radiation level near Fukushima is not a cancer risk.

(Emphasis in the original.)

Though a mutual friend, Dr. Sakamoto has asked that his presentation slides be posted here so that more people can understand the basis on which he has made that important assertion.

Just in case you do not take the time to click on the presentation link, here are the conclusions that Dr. Sakamoto wanted his audience to take out of the presentation:

Conclusions

Much information is known about the effects of low dose and low levels of radiation on living organisms, especially mice and people

Low doses of radiation stimulate:

immunity to cancer

biological defenses against DNA damage

LDR (Low Dose Radiation) can be used to cure / prevent cancer

The dose or dose rate at which radiation starts to become harmful is also known

There is no basis to fear low-level radiation

I think those are reassuring and useful thoughts with which to leave you and the residents of the Fukushima prefecture. Despite everything that serious researchers like Dr. Sakamoto have learned about the health effects of low level radiation those residents are still being told by fear mongers like Arnie Gundersen and Helen Caldicott that they should live in fear or that they will never be able to return to their homes.

The media establishment – perhaps because of the importance of fossil fuel advertising to its bottom line – is helping to reinforce that scary and untrue message. What I cannot understand is the assistance being provided by nuclear professionals who cling to the LNT assumption in the face of mounting evidence that it is wrong and probably hazardous to human health.

Rod Adams gained his nuclear knowledge as a submarine engineer officer and as the founder of a company that tried to develop a market for small, modular reactors from 1993-1999. He began publishing Atomic Insights in 1995 and began producing The Atomic Show Podcast in March 2006. Following his Navy career and a three year stint with an SMR design project (B&W mPower), he turned Atomic Insights into an LLC and began devoting his full efforts to publishing, writing, and producing.